I conclude posts from this chapter with the following excerpts. I recommend reviewing this work to come to an understanding of how substance dualism applies to dualist interactionism. What I am posting now complements much of what I have shared in my books and blogs. These excerpts are included since they identify the focus of my own research over the last 20 plus years.
“For anything to cause a physical object to move, or cause any change in one, there must be a flow of energy or transfer of momentum, from the cause to the physical object. But how could there be an energy flow from an immaterial mind to a material thing? What kind of energy could it be? . . . . Could there be causal interactions among immaterial substances? Ruling out mind-body causal interaction does not in itself rule out the possibility of a causally autonomous domain of immaterial minds in which minds are in causal commerce with other minds. Perhaps that is the picture of a purely spiritual afterlife envisioned in some religions and theologies. . . . is there anything in principle wrong with locating immaterial minds in physical space and thereby making it possible for them to participate in the causal transactions of the world? . . . . It is not surprising that substance dualism has not been a prominent alternative in contemporary philosophy of mind. But there is no call to exclude it a priori, without serious discussion; some highy reputable and respected philosophers continue to defend it as a realistic - perhaps the only - option. . . . you can take having a mind simply as having a certain special set of properties, capacities, and characteristics, something that humans and some higher animals possess but sticks and stones do not. To say that something ‘has a mind’ is to classify it as a certain sort of thing - as a thing with capacities for certain characteristic sorts of behavior and functions, such as sensation, perception, memory, learning, consciousness, and goal-directed action. For this reason, it is less misleading to speak of ‘having a mentality’ than ‘having a mind.’”